I have been reading this Cato Institute legal research paper by Michael Cannon and its making me realize that the GOP governors could really make Obamacare a political liablity for the Democrats by refusing to set up a state run health exchange. It is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it. In summary, it looks like the Obama Adminstration ultimately is going to have to count on a second John Roberts rescue. Heres why. First, from Philip Klein:

With the election over and Obama reelected, repealing the law is not going to happen over the next four years. So 30 Republican governors will have to make a decision about whether they want to help the federal government implement Obamacare, or keep the onus on the Obama administration.

One of the silver linings of the Supreme Court decision is that it gave states the ability to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. Medicaid is one of the programs that is crushing state budgets and if implemented as intended, Obamacare will add 18 million beneficiaries to the programs rolls. Though the federal government lures states with a honey pot in the short term  covering all of the expansion through 2016, by 2020 the states will be asked to kick in 10 percent of the cost, amounting to billions of dollars of spending imposed on states nationwide each year. It would be to the long-term benefit of governors to opt (out) of the expansion...

Never surrender and never give up hope. In a few years this monstrosity will be absorbing so much of the federal budget that the only alternative for the left will be to print money and bring on massive monetary inflation. We may have to endure some real hard times to open some folks eyes but that will do the trick.

Unfortunately, some (many actually) will never learn. They have never in their life been taught to think logically, only emotionally. Here is a good article that explains why we shouldn't (if possible) just let the system fall apart. I feel the same as you, but the article brings up some good historical evidence for not allowing that to happen.

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

There are two and only two choices. Either the tax has to be apportioned or it must be uniform. Smaller states would never have allowed the larger states to tax me and not thee.

It is becoming more clear that 0bamacare taxpenalty is neither. Scalia pointed out in his opinion that this is still a pending issue because neither side was given the opportunity to address it in the original case.

But when a federal appeal court rules that banning race from consideration in admission to public universities is unconstitutional, the federal bench as become little for than a sad joke.

This insurance fine cr** isn't going to work. You watch...they'll change it and will double what they take out of your check for Medicare....

And if the penalty is a tax....then every person who is working will pay...including those making less than $250,000...you know....the middle class folks who will NEVER be asked to pay more....cough, cough

What the Republican governors should do is remove the negotiating rights of state workers and force them into the same type of health insurance and retirement program as private sector workers.

Right now, the SEIU members and teachers believe that their health insurance coverage is sacrosanct, that they will never be forced to into the same rationed care system that they have pushed on the rest of us. We need to make sure that they suffer the same fate as the rest of us and know that it is coming, especially the teachers. Oh, that goes double for politicians.

Not true, methinks. All indirect taxes must be uniform and almost all direct taxes must be apportioned. The income tax, which is a direct tax, does not need to be apportioned, per the 16th amendment. No doubt the Obamacare mandate taxalty/penatax will be deemed an income tax.

By the way, the correct answer for what is the taxalty is that it is a tax on insurance owning status, and therefore an illegal direct tax. SCOTUS will, if it hasn’t already, declare it either an income tax or to not know what the hell it is except that it’s legal.

“a tax on inactivity does not fall within the prescribed functions for which taxes may be levied”

It is not so much a tax on nonaction as on the status of not possessing insurance. Which makes it akin to all manner of direct taxes, for instance the tax on having earned so much income in the last year or a tax on ownersio of property.

“nor the forms of taxes permitted.”

True. If it us a direct tax, and it is, it must be apportioned. If it is an income tax, which it isn’t, it wouldn’t need to. But it isn’t, so it doesn’t.

Yes and no. Yes in the sense that the income tax, for instance, is a tax is effectively a tax on the activity that earned you income. No in the sense that the income tax, for instance, is a tax on the status of having earned a certain amount of money in a certain period of time.

I see where you’re coming from; it’s the same place that recognizes the absurdity of regulating inactivity. You can’t regulate something that doesn’t exist. But taxation is different: you can tax something that doesn’t exist by taxing the status resulting from its nonexistence.

“Actually it’s not as tax at all — it’s a penalty”

Absolutely, but as in many things SCOTUS forces us to play makebelieve.

I believe this is what will happen in 2014. It will take a while for a suit by someone with standing—in this case, a taxpayer—to wend its way upward, and possibly the Obamination will have several wise Latinas in place by then, so it will all be for schloe, but one can hope.

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